


Frosty Happenings

by elanev91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Artist!Lily, But here it is, F/M, I don't know what this fic is, Snow, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Weather Presenter!James, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 09:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12407706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elanev91/pseuds/elanev91
Summary: James swears that it isn't going to snow -- as a meteorologist, he probably knows what he's talking about, right? Wrong.Thanks to the tumblr anon that requested some winter Jily x





	Frosty Happenings

**Author's Note:**

> For the brilliant, beautiful starfish anon on Tumblr who pointed out that I’ve never written winter Jily.
> 
> And a million thanks to @levins18 for basically writing this shop with me in chat and to @petalstofish for reading this and trying to kill me with compliments. I love you guys x
> 
> (Also, what about this title eh? You have @petalstofish to thank for this brilliance)

'Hello there, it's turned into a rather slippery Friday morning hasn't it? Ice is going to be quite a widespread problem this morning, and, for those in the East, snow could, possibly, become something of an issue this weekend.'

Lily sighed from her spot on the couch, almost clicked the television back off so that she didn't have to hear the presenter's far too chipper voice. She pushed herself to her feet, walked into the kitchen, and put the kettle on instead.

She could still hear the presenter from the kitchen, could hear his smooth, upbeat voice over the quiet hiss of the kettle, the subtle metal buzzing of the toaster as she toasted herself a piece of bread.

'Let's take a closer look at things this afternoon. You can see this low pressure system working its way across the eastern parts,' Lily poked her head back into the living room, saw the presenter gesturing towards a long, blue line stretching from East Sussex all the way to fucking Northampton, 'This system is a dry one, so I'm not _too_ worried about snow coming in today, though you might see a few flurries across this stretch at some point today. In terms of snow, we're really looking at this weekend — we got this system here moving in from the West that's pretty saturated, so we can definitely expect some snow this weekend, starting late Saturday, early Sunday. Central London looks slated to get the worst of it, so you're definitely going to want to take some precautions this weekend.'

Lily's groan drowned out the sound of the kettle clicking off.

'By the middle of the afternoon today, this low pressure system is going to reach as far north as the North Midlands, northern England will get some light flurries at this stage and a really cold field — it's going to be just one degree in Newcastle, pretty windy, so it's going to feel quite raw out there today — '

Lily walked back into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of tea. By the time she walked back into the living room, mug in one hand, bit of toast in the other, the presenter was finishing up his weather report. 'So, there's lots of wintry weather this week, make sure that you check for regular updates on our website. Now, it's time for the business report with Mary MacDonald. Mary?'

Lily vaguely heard Mary say, 'Thanks, James,' before she leaned back on the cushions, took a long drag of her tea, and watched Mary start talking about some new speculation regarding the economics of the Brexit 'deal'.

Her mobile pinged a minute later, and Lily leaned forward, plucked the phone from the coffee table. It lit up as she lifted it, and, even though she immediately started shaking her head, she also lit up in a smile.

_James Potter: How about that weather report, eh? X_

Lily chuckled, shook her head a bit more as she tapped out a reply -

_Lily Potter: You're ridiculous. Just tell me whether I need to go grocery shopping so we don't starve to death_

_James Potter: Nah, I think we'll be fine_

_Lily Potter: You literally JUST said that central London is going to get the worst of it. You know where we live don't you?_

_James Potter: Oh, Evans. You know I have to amp up the scare tactics for the kids_

_Lily Potter: What are you even talking about_

_James Potter: You know, so they're careful and shit. We don't want people driving around unnecessarily all weekend_

She started typing her response, but James beat her to the punch.

_James Potter: It's about a 532 line right now, our wet-bulb temps are a bit high, AND it's been above freezing the last few days - I don't think it'll stick for a while, if ever. Seriously, we're fine_

None of that made any sense to her. She took another long drink of her tea before she replied, decided that cheek was a much better course of action than trying to get James to explain what any of that shit meant.

_Lily Potter: I can't believe I married a weather nerd_

_James Potter: First of all, you think my weather love is adorable_

She'd laughed at him when they first met, ten years ago at uni, when he tried (and failed) to explain to her just _why_ the weather was so bloody exciting. It was early one evening in October, and she'd been sitting in George Square, sketching away, trying to pull _something_ together for her fucking 'Drawing from the City' module, when he came stumbling over to where she was sitting and started walking through the Labyrinth. He was chatting on his mobile, his eyes trained on his feet as he walked carefully along the path, and though she tried to ignore him, tried to keep her eyes trained on her sketchbook, she found herself catching snatches of his conversation, found her eyes wandering back to him time and time again.

'No, mate, come on,' he was saying the first time she looked up, 'you have nothing to feel bad about…. You got into fucking _Cambridge,_ were you supposed to just turn that down…. He'll be alright, he's just - yeah, you know how he gets.'

He rounded a curve, looked up, and his eyes found hers across the way. She flushed, thanked god that she was far away enough that he probably wouldn't notice, and dropped her gaze back to her sketchbook.

He'd continued walking round, continued talking whoever he was speaking with off some kind of ledge, and she kept finding her eyes drawn to him no matter how much she tried to control herself, this tall man with the mad black hair, the kind yet firm voice, and the broad shoulders.

He was through the labyrinth and had sat down in the centre before he finally hung up the phone. He set his mobile down onto the ground beside him, fisted his hand in his hair again, and _fucking fell back_ onto the ground and groaned loudly (so loudly Lily jumped and broke her pencil on her sketchpad) at the sky.

'You arsehole,' the words were out of her mouth before she could think to stop them, and he sat up, turned around and looked at her. 'Sorry?'

'You scared the shit out of me!'

He'd laughed, the bastard, and even though she wanted to shout at him again, her stomach had also exploded with butterflies. 'Sorry,' he said, raking his hand through his hair again, 'I was just really frustrated and I needed to get it out.'

'What about?'

She shouldn't have pried, her mother would have chastised her for it, but she was intrigued by him, this idiot on the ground in the middle of the Square who seemed intent on making his hair stand on end.

'One of my mates is - well, he's feeling guilty about going to bloody Cambridge because _another_ one of my mates is being a twat.'

'Oh,' Lily said, 'I'm sorry.'

'Nah,' James shook his head, 'you don't need to be sorry, he'll be alright. Remus is a fucking genius and deserves it, and Peter is just being a shithead. He'll come round.'

They'd ended up walking back through the Square together some time later, chatting all the while, made their way to the local, and got a round of cider. It was there, two ciders in, that he told her that he was studying geophysics and meteorology, that he fucking loved the weather, and that he was going to work for the Met Office if he had his way.

She'd laughed, asked him if he was fulfilling some weird British desire to just talk about the bloody weather forever, but he'd shaken his head vehemently, probably a bit more so now that he had cider buzzing in his veins, and tried to explain.

'You're using _physics_ ,' he said, a wide, silly smile on his face, 'to study atmospheric dynamics, climate change, and meteorological phenomena! And geophysics is the same but with like,' he took another long draught of his cider, 'the ground!'

Lily snorted into her drink, 'I thought you were quoting the bloody course leaflets until you got to "the ground"!'

'It's fascinating and you know it,' James insisted, leaning closer to her, a bright, enthusiastic look in his eyes that made her heart hurt when she saw it, that night in the pub and every time since. 'Weather affects everything we do,' he said, 'and the climate - Evans, don't even get me _started_ on climate change!'

She _had_ gotten him started on climate change, if only because she couldn't resist teasing him and she really wanted to see what would happen when she said, 'So what if I told you that I think climate change is a conspiracy made up by American progressives intent on ruining the oil industry?'

He'd been so fucking cute then, eyes shining with irritation, hands flying everywhere, that she couldn't resist leaning over, her hand on his knee, and kissing him (and then almost immediately bursting into laughter when he murmured 'You really don't believe that about climate change, right,' against her lips).

_James Potter: And second of all, I'm devastatingly handsome, so…_

Lily snorted, rolled her eyes, and texted back. _Go back to work, you git x_

She stood to walk back into the kitchen, and remembered one more thing she needed to tell him. _Oh, also — if you're wrong I'm going to kill you_

James' reply was immediate — _Please, love, I'm NEVER wrong xxxx —_ and even though she rolled her eyes, she couldn't help but smile at him.

She brewed herself a second cup, made another piece of toast, and sat back on the couch, watched the rest of the news quietly, grinning when James popped back onto the screen at quarter til eight and delivered his last weather report. He always looked so happy on screen, his bright, broad smile clearly genuine as he stood in front of his weather maps and chatted easily about the apparently predictable workings of the atmosphere. He sent a small wink to the camera at the end, one that she knew was just for her, and she shook her head, thinking about just how pissed off his producer was going to be at him for winking at the camera again.

When the presenters smiled their goodbyes from the bright red couch ('Breakfast, back as usual, tomorrow from six. 'Til then, have a great day, goodbye'), Lily clicked the telly off, pushed herself up off the couch, and walked upstairs to the bathroom.

It was, she noted ruefully as she glanced out the bathroom window, already fucking snowing.

She sighed, decided to trust James and his weather maps, and turned on the shower as hot as she could stand it.

It was that decision that she would ultimately come to regret.

It was still snowing when she got out of the shower, but the flakes were small, they were melting the moment they hit the sidewalk, and she figured (again, stupidly) that James was probably right.

She brewed herself another cup of tea, grabbed her portable drawing pad out of her office, and went back into the living room, and sat with her feet up, sketching away, hadn't bothered to look out the window or turn the weather back on because her husband was a bloody meteorologist and _surely_ he knew what he was talking about, right?

Wrong.

When she resurfaced a few hours later, it had started snowing in earnest. The snow was coming down in big, fluffy clumps now, and she groaned as she went to drop her sketch pad back in the office. She checked her mobile for any follow up messages from James, any updates like "hey nevermind it's actually going to snow a fuck ton and you might want to go to the shop after all", but, her messages were completely empty.

She tapped out a quick message that (she hoped) conveyed just how fucking annoyed she was.

_Lily Potter: So much for not snowing and sticking, you fucking prat_

James read her message almost immediately, started typing one message, two, and then stopped typing altogether. Lily shook her head, dialled his number, walked into the kitchen, and set the kettle on.

She _knew_ that he had his mobile in his hand, but it still took three rings before he picked up.

'Hello, love, how're you?'

He was trying to sound upbeat and cute, but she wasn't having it.

'How the fuck do you think, James?'

'Beautiful, I bet — '

' _James.'_

He sighed, 'There was a sizeable polar maritime mass that shifted, and brought a lot of really cold, really moist air into the picture and — '

'That's why it's snowing a whole fucking lot outside right now.'

'Yeah,' his tone was awkward now, and she could practically see James running his hand through his hair, 'yeah that explains the snow.'

'For fucks' sake, James,' the kettle clicked off and Lily poured water over her teabag, 'I would have gone shopping earlier if I'd known this shit was going to happen!'

'There was no way to - '

She waved her hand as though he were standing in front of her. 'Fine, fine, fine, whatever,' she said, turning and grabbing milk from the fridge, 'I'll just go to Sainsbury's now, but I need you to know that I'm pissed off at you and you owe me.'

She dumped the last bit of milk into her tea and swore under her breath.

'No,' she heard him shift the phone and the noise on his end of the line got louder, 'I'll go. I'm headed out now anyway.'

She glanced at the clock, stirred her tea. 'Oh shit, I guess it is about that time.'

'Yeah,' James said, 'the glories of getting to work at five in the morning.'

Lily rolled her eyes, 'You could have worked a nine to five like a normal person.'

'Yeah, but then the world wouldn't get to see my dashing face.'

She could practically feel James' smile radiating through the phone.

'God you're the worst.'

James laughed, 'And yet — '

'I married you,' she took a sip of her tea, walked back into the sitting room, 'don't remind me.'

James scoffed, but his grin was evident in his voice, 'Evans. We both know you're thankful for me every day. Especially when I — '

'Oi,' she rested her mobile on her shoulder, used her free hand to grab her drawing pad, 'don't try to distract me.'

James laughed as she turned and began walking back upstairs to her office. 'I can't help it. You know I _love_ distracting you, Evans.'

'And you're more than welcome to when we aren't facing snowpocalypse,' she said. She walked into her office, plugged in her drawing pad, and woke up her desktop.

James snorted, 'Oh, please, we're fine,' but she could barely hear him over the roar of noise that suddenly flooded over the line.

'Where are you,' she asked, taking the mobile her her hand again and leaning back in her chair, 'it's loud as fuck.'

'Tube station,' James said, 'there are people _everywhere_ here.'

'It's normally pretty quiet at noon.'

'Who knows,' he said, 'I'll let you go, But I'll definitely stop at Sainsbury's on the way home. What do we need?'

'Everything,' Lily said, 'god knows how long we're going to be snowed in.'

'We're _not_ going to get snowed in.'

'You don't know that.'

'I — ' James groaned, 'whatever. Alright, I'll get some stuff.'

'Don't forget milk.'

'Milk,' he said, 'Alright. I'll see you when I get home. I love you.'

'Love you, too.'

She set her mobile back down on her desk, shook her head. She _shouldn't_ be cross with him about the snow (it really wasn't his fault), but if he was going to sit there and claim to be some kind of weather predicting god ninety percent of the time… well, yeah, she was going to be bloody cross with him.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your perspective), she still had an afternoon's worth of work ahead of her and, thus, no time to fret about James and his fucking weather maps.

An hour (and a long, arduous conversation with her client) later, she heard James come into the house and drop his keys into the bowl. 'Hey, love,' he shouted, and she heard him start making his way down the corridor.

'Hi,' she said, 'I'll be down in a sec, I just need to send these off.'

She checked over her images one final time before attaching them to an email and sending them off to her client. They were going to have something to complain about anyway, they always fucking did, so there was no sense in falling all over herself to make sure the early sketches were perfect.

She put the computer to sleep and pushed back from her chair, stretching her arms over her head as she walked out of the office and down the stairs to the kitchen. James must have heard her coming because he shouted, 'In the kitchen,' when she was about halfway down the stairs.

James turned around when she walked into the kitchen, offered her a wide, warm smile. She grinned, rested her hand on his chest, and pushed herself up onto her toes to kiss him. James smiled against her lips, and she felt his hand land on her waist, his cold fingers slipping under the hem of her t-shirt. She hummed against his lips, stepped closer, and James' hand moved to the small of her back.

She pulled away after a moment and James dropped a kiss to her forehead before straightening up. He smiled at her, 'How was your day?'

She shrugged, 'It was alright. Finished those sketches for Rollins and sent them off. I'm sure they'll have something to fucking complain about, but they always do early in the process.'

James nodded, balled up the plastic shopping bag on the counter, and moved to toss it into the bin in the corner. When he moved, Lily saw the small pile of groceries on the counter and felt her jaw drop.

'James!'

'What?'

' _This_ is all you got from the store?' She pointed at the various packets of biscuits and the giant tin of instant cocoa James had set out on the worktop. James grinned at her, 'Yeah, thought we'd light a fire, snuggle up, drink some — '

'James! We can't live on this for an entire week! I told you to do a proper fucking shop!'

James leaned back against the worktop, ran a hand through his hair, 'We don't need that much though? I thought we had a bunch of shit.'

Lily shook her head, held up her hand and started ticking things off on her fingers, 'We're out of milk, bread, we've got like five teabags, there's _maybe_ a scoop of Nutella left —'

'Alright, alright,' James sighed, pushed off the worktop and grabbed a few shopping bags from the hook in the corner, 'I'll go back.'

'Well, I'm going with you.'

James frowned, 'You don't need to go out in this, Evans — '

Lily shot him a look, 'I do if I want to make sure we actually get groceries, James.'

James huffed, 'I'm not completely inept, you know.'

Lily crossed her arms, felt the fight simmering between them and was not at all interested in stopping it, 'Could've fucking fooled me with this shopping trip of yours, Potter.'

James smirked at her then, a fiery look she recognised in his eyes, 'You're a Potter too, you know.'

Lily stamped her foot (something she hadn't done in years), ' _James_!'

James laughed, and the fact that he was sitting there unable to recognise the gravity of the situation they were in made her absolutely incensed. 'Normally that works!'

She could strangle him. 'Normally we aren't about to be fucking snowed in!'

'Alright, alright,' James dialled back his smile, took a tentative step forward, and, when Lily didn't smack him, pressed a quick kiss to her temple, 'we'll go now.'

Lily nodded, 'I'll get my boots,' and turned on her heel to walk out of the kitchen.

James laughed as he fell into step beside her, 'You've still got those old things?!'

'I spent a hundred bloody pounds on them, James, of course I've still got them.'

'You should get a new pair,' James said, stepping aside so she could start going up the stairs ahead of him, 'It's been, what, eight years?'

Lily turned, raised an eyebrow at him, 'I'm not having this conversation with you right now.'

James laughed, but stopped quickly when Lily shot him a look. 'I'm just saying. Are they even in good condition anymore?'

Lily rolled her eyes, 'I've worn them like three times. They're fine.'

'You wore them the whole week we were in Devon.'

Lily pushed open the door to their room, grabbed her boots from the box she kept underneath the bed, 'Can we not fucking talk about that trip right now?'

James grinned, 'Sorry,' and grabbed a pair of wool socks for each of them out of the chest of drawers, tossed Lily her pair.

Lily cocked an eyebrow at him as she unrolled her socks, 'Are you?'

James laughed, 'No,' and Lily hit him with one of her socks before she sat down on the edge of the bed.

'It was a really rare weather event, that was,' James said, smirking at her, pulling his own boots out from the bottom of his wardrobe, and sitting down on the bed next to her.

Lily rolled her eyes, 'I remember. You only said it a million times that week.'

'Well, it's rare that we see those levels of precipitation in the south of England,' James said, his voice picking up that excited quality that she always found irresistible, 'The Gulf Stream — '

Lily shot him a look, 'You're excited about the snow right now, too, aren't you?'

James shrugged, but his eyes were shining happily, and she knew the answer. She shook her head, but smiled at him all the same. 'You're ridiculous.'

'Come on, you love the snow, too.'

'I do not!'

'Yeah you do,' James said, turning on the bed to face her and leaning forward a bit, 'you really enjoyed yourself in Devon from what I can remember.'

He had a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips again, his eyes had that warm, blazing look dancing at the edges, and she felt her breath hitch as he trailed his gaze smoothly over her before their eyes met again.

She bit her lip, 'That was indoors.'

James' look intensified, and he leaned closer, moved his hand so it was just shy of touching her leg, 'Not all of it.'

He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, and Lily's breath caught. She met his eyes again and he grinned, that sexy, devious grin that he always wore when he knew _exactly_ what he was doing, and she pulled in a breath, straightened her shoulders.

'We don't have time for this,' she said, trying to convince herself as much as him.

'We _always_ have time for this, Evans.'

She wanted to tell him that _no,_ this time they really didn't, but his eyes were positively smouldering now and he was leaning so close and he smelled so fucking good and she could already feel the way his hands would move over her skin and, so, damn it all to hell, she reached up, wound her fingers in the hair at the base of his neck, and closed the distance between them.

* * *

When they emerged from bed sometime later, though, they realised just how much of a mistake that had been.

By the time Lily rolled off him, by the time they peeled themselves apart, Lily pulling her nose from the crook of his neck, James untangling his limbs from hers, by the time they started looking for their clothes again, they couldn't see the road for all the snow outside.

When Lily sat up and realised just how fucked they were, she screamed (and smacked James in the chest for good measure).

'Fuck,' she rolled away from James, ignoring his protests as she kicked her feet off the edge and stood up, 'Fuck, fuck, fuck.'

James rolled over onto his side, watched her as she grabbed her knickers off the floor. 'If you're going to be doing that, Evans, we're never going to get out of here.'

'Oh for fucks' sake,' she grabbed his shirt off the ground, only saw his cheeky smirk for a second before she threw his t-shirt onto his head, 'get up you git.'

James sighed, sat up and stretched, let Lily get a full glimpse of his chest (grinned when she stared, the smug bastard) before he pulled the t shirt over his head.

'It can't be that bad,' he said, leaning down and grabbing his jeans off the floor, 'it's only been, what? An hour?'

Lily scoffed, 'Look outside Mr Weather Presenter,' and fastened her bra.

James stood and walked to the window, swore under his breath and Lily raised a challenging eyebrow, 'I thought it wasn't going to be that bad.'

James ran his hand through his hair awkwardly, 'It wasn't supposed to be.'

She shook her head, grabbed a thick, wool jumper out of her wardrobe, pulled it over her head.

'Just get dressed. I'm leaving in five whether you're ready or not.'

She marched out of their bedroom and down the stairs, leaving James and his amused 'I can't control the weather, Lily, just attempt to predict it,' behind. She opened up the cupboard in their entry, dug out the thickest coats they owned, found gloves, hats, and scarves, before she marched into the kitchen and grabbed some of their grocery bags off the hook in the corner.

When James emerged from their bedroom a minute later, her snow boots in hand, he offered her a small, reconciliatory smile. 'You really don't have to come with me.'

She sighed, tugged on her boots, 'It's fine, James.'

He frowned, rocked back into his heels, ran his hand through his hair again. 'You're going to kill me later, aren't you?'

Lily snorted, stood and pressed a kiss to his cheek. 'I'll make it quick,' she said, taking his hand and pulling him through the front door. James laughed, squeezed her hand, 'That's all I ask.'

It was bitterly cold when they stepped outside. James pulled the door shut behind them, turned the lock while Lily waited on the step, wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck. She dipped her head against the snow when James joined her and they headed down St Maur towards Fulham Road. The snow was already starting to pile up on the sidewalk and most of the bikes that normally filled the bike racks in the alley adjacent were already gone, presumably taken inside so that they wouldn't be buried in the snow.

Lily stuffed her hands deeper into her pockets, looked over at James.

As much as she'd wanted to kill him an hour before, she couldn't deny (even to herself) how adorable James was now that they were out in the snow. He kept looking up at the sky, a broad smile on his face as the now giant white flakes floated down and landed on them, kicked the snow as they walked, humming to himself as he watched the snow spray out in front of them. She was still incredibly cross with him for dragging them out into the snow, but he was also so fucking cute that she almost didn't mind.

Almost.

It took them twenty minutes to walk to Sainsbury's, more than double the time it normally took, and when they got there, the place was a fucking madhouse.

The carpark was packed with haphazardly parked cars, there were people slipping and sliding all over the sidewalks, and though one of the poor kids that worked there was already outside dumping bags of grit salt everywhere, the snow was falling at such a rate that she would be surprised if the kid just didn't call it a day soon.

All the trolleys outside were covered in snow, and the few left indoors were barely functional. They tested the three standing in the corner of the entrance, picked the least terrible (it had an incredibly squeaky wheel, but at least it moved without too much trouble), and set off into the shop, narrowly avoiding crashing into one woman laden with bags making her way out of the double doors.

'Alright,' Lily said, coming to a stop just to the right of the door where they were at least partially out of the way, 'divide and conquer. You go get milk, yoghurt, eggs, all the perishable shit. I'll go get pantry stuff.'

'Honestly, we aren't going to be snowed in, we don't need — ' Lily shot him a look, and James sighed, 'Alright, I'm going,' before he turned right and walked off towards the produce.

Lily turned and started pushing the trolley towards the back of the store, navigating around long checkout queues and through massive herds of people that seemed to think that standing around in the middle of an aisle was an appropriate fucking way to conduct yourself when everyone around you is obviously in a hurry. It didn't take her long, though, to realise just _why_ everyone was sort of standing around and why, now, so few people actually had food in the trolleys they were pushing around in front of them.

The shelves, all of them, were nearly bare.

She swore (a bit louder than she realised, because a woman nearby immediately whipped around to glare at her) and began pushing through the crowd of people just milling around, glancing up the aisles as she went.

'Fucking James, "it's not going to snow, it's fine, Lily, relax," for fucks sake.' She muttered under her breath as she walked, grabbing the occasional thing off the shelf. There was no Nutella left, the only loaf of bread was slightly smashed, but beggars couldn't be choosers. There were a few jars of their favourite strawberry chia jam, so that felt like something of a victory, but she still didn't have much that they could put together in anything that even remotely resembled a meal.

She'd made her way through half the store and was staring at the few remaining cereal boxes, trying to decide which weird bran flavour would be the least terrible, when James came back, his arms overflowing with things that were _not_ milk or eggs or any of the things she asked him to get.

" _James,_ we are having a fucking snow storm! Put that shit back!'

James looked down at the haul in his arms, the crisps, the random candies and chocolates, before he looked back up at her, brows furrowed. 'But Evans, we need this stuff!'

He stepped forward like he was going to drop his selections into the trolley, and Lily held up her hand. 'James, we do _not_ need an entire armful of junk. '

'Lily, this isn't junk. This is - '

Lily moved around the side of the trolley, took a step closer to him, and lowered her voice to a fierce hiss, 'James, for fucks sake - '

'But we n - '

She took another step closer, 'James, I swear to god, if you say we need this shit again - '

James grinned, barely suppressed a laugh, 'We do!'

Lily shook her head, 'No, James, we don't. What we _needed_ was to get to the fucking shop hours ago, like this morning when you told me that it wasn't going to snow or this afternoon when you came here and bought biscuits and that's fucking it!'

James rolled his eyes, and even though she knew he was trying to stay calm, she could see his temper starting to flick on, 'I'm wrong one bloody time and you're never going to let me live it down.'

'You're - ' they really didn't have time for a fight, as much as she was itching for one, 'for fucks' sake, just go get some milk. I don't have time to fight with you about this.'

James frowned, 'They only have semi-skimmed.'

Lily stared back at him, confused. 'Okay?'

James looked at her like he'd been superbly wronged, 'I hate that kind.'

'I don't fucking care, James, we're completely out of milk.'

'They have cream.'

Lily gritted her teeth. 'That's. Not. Milk.'

James half shrugged, careful not to upset the things in his arms, 'Well, yeah, but it's better than semi-skimmed.'

'We can't eat cereal with cream, we don't take our _tea_ with cream, what the fuck do we need cream for? It will just rot in the fridge! Now go back, _please,_ and get us some fucking milk.'

'Can we get this stuff at least?'

Lily huffed, 'Fucking fine, drop it in and just _go_.'

James grinned, not even bothering to hide the fact that he was quite pleased with himself, and dropped the food into the trolley before he turned on his heel and disappeared around the corner. It was even more ridiculous now that she was able to see it all, the giant bag of Maoam sour stripes, the bloody _Kinder eggs_ he'd chosen for a reason she absolutely couldn't fathom, but she knew that the longer they stood in a deserted cereal aisle sniping at each other, the longer this fucking shop was going to take, and, inevitably, the more snow there would be on the ground when they finally left fucking Sainsbury's.

Lily made her way through the empty aisles, pushing as politely as she could manage between the packs of people milling round with trolleys as empty as hers, mumbling 'Sorry, so sorry, excuse me,' almost constantly as she walked.

She'd walked through about half of the remaining aisles before she muttered 'Fuck it,' and decided to make her way back towards produce to find James. They were completely out of everything that was even remotely edible and the shelves weren't magically going to restock just because she was staring at them.

She found him standing in the middle of the frozen section, and, at first, she thought he was looking for some kind of vegetable, but then she remembered that she was married to a giant fucking toddler and that she should never, ever put that kind of faith in him ever again.

'JAMES FOR FUCKS SAKE WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ICE CREAM!'

James grinned, 'It's frozen milk!'

'I swear to _god_ James, I am going to strangle you and leave your corpse in the middle of the store and I will _not_ come back for you. I swear to you I won't.'

'You won't murder me, Lily, you'd miss me.'

'I _will_ fucking lock you outside in the garden, though, so you better watch yourself. I could leave you outside in the snow and nobody would know for weeks, don't fucking tempt me.'

'So…' James smiled winningly at her, 'maybe just a few pints of ice cream, then.'

'Christ, James, just put it in the damn trolley, we need to leave.'

'Yessss,' James pumped his fist into the air, 'I knew you'd crack.'

'If you get more than three,' Lily said, 'we're getting a divorce.'

James grinned at her, 'So, not ten? What if five of them are your absolute favourites because I love you so much?'

' _James -_ '

If he noticed the warning in her voice, he didn't seem to think it was important to heed it. He shot her a quick grin, held up his hands in mock surrender, 'Alright, alright. Three each.'

She walked away before she actually did kill him.

She shouted 'Meet me at self-service,' over her shoulder, and left to see what she could recover from the aisles James apparently hadn't felt it necessary to check earlier. She grabbed the last only slightly fucked up litre of milk (unfortunately for James, it was semi-skimmed) and managed to find a container of greek yoghurt before she tired of looking into cartons of broken eggs and left to meet James at the front.

He had, as she expected, six pints of ice cream in his arms and a stupid smile on his face, and she rolled her eyes as she wheeled over to him and queued up for the self-service tills.

'I heard you coming from all the way over here,' James said, laughing, 'that cart is loud as hell.'

Lily nodded, 'I know, it was fucking annoying. It got people to move out of my way, though, so - '

James grinned, 'You would like that.'

Lily smirked, bumped his elbow with her own.

The queue moved more quickly than she imagined that it would based on how long the bloody thing was, but no one seemed interested in dawdling when the snow was coming down with increasing speed outside the shop windows opposite. She and James rang up their truly pathetic purchases, slid their trolley back into the corner where they'd found it, and set off through the snow towards home.

It was even colder than it had been when they'd left the house an hour before, there was easily at least another inch of snow on the ground, and the wind was blowing fiercely.

James whistled quietly, turned to look at her, 'Guess that Northern system made its way south.' He looked like he expected her to shout at him again, but she just sighed, pulled the bag up higher onto her shoulder and took his hand. She _wanted_ to shout at him, she _wanted_ to be irritated that they were wading through damn near a foot of snow with very few groceries to hold them over, but she wanted to be home more than anything else, and fighting with James absolutely wasn't going to get them there any faster.

James squeezed her hand, dropped a kiss to her forehead just at the edge of her hat, and they trudged on through the snow.

When they opened their door twenty minutes later, it was like getting hit with a heat wave.

'Fuck,' James swore as they slipped in through the door, barely caught onto Lily's shoulders before he fell. She snorted with laughter as she toed off her boots and set them near the radiator.

'You fucking dork,' she said, still laughing, 'I told you to be careful!'

'We should have put down grit salt,' James said. He unbuttoned his coat, set his mittens overtop the radiator to dry. 'You know we don't have grit salt, love,' Lily said, rolling her eyes, 'We didn't even have milk.'

James laughed, 'Good point.'

When they finished stripping off and setting their things to dry, Lily turned to him. 'Hot chocolate?'

James looked like he wanted to say something, like it was right on the tip of his tongue, but he managed to restrain himself. 'Sure,' he said, 'I'll start a fire?'

Lily grinned, 'Perfect.'

She set off into the kitchen, grabbed two mugs out of the cabinet as James starting tossing logs into the fireplace.

Lily walked back into the living room a moment later, two mugs of hot chocolate steaming in her hands. She set James' on the table and settled onto the couch, grabbed the blanket off the back cushions and wrapped it around herself while she watched James finish building the fire.

'Are you comfortable,' James asked, looking at her over his shoulder as he shifted the logs around. Lily grinned, took another long drink of her cocoa, 'Yes.'

'Do you want to come and help me?'

Lily snorted, 'No. You just drug me out in the snow, I'm not doing anything else for you today.'

James laughed, turned back and started fiddling with the fire, 'Nice to know you love me, Evans.'

Lily shook her head at him even though she knew that he couldn't see, sipped at her drink as she watched the way his jumper stretched over the muscles in his back.

After a few minutes, James managed to get the fire lit and burning at a level he deemed acceptable, and he pushed himself to his feet, stepped forward, and grabbed his mug off the table.

'I'll just sit on the floor,' James said, stepping back, leaning up against the wall, and staring pathetically over at her, 'I don't want to disturb you.'

'Come on,' Lily said, barely keeping herself from rolling her eyes. She moved her mug into one hand, picked up the edge of her blanket, patted the cushion next to her, 'come here, you big prat.'

James sent her a warm smile, crossed the sitting room, and settled onto the sofa next to her. Lily turned, threw her legs across his lap, scooted closer so that she could rest her chin on his shoulder, pressed her nose into his neck for a moment before she pulled back, cradled her mug in her hands, rested it on her knee.

James turned and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, took a drink of his cocoa. They were quiet for a long moment, the warmth of her mug heating her hands, James' hand tracing lightly over her thigh, both of them watching the snow falling faster and fiercer outside, thankful that they could sit here, cocoa in hand, a warm blanket draped over them.

Lily snuggled a bit closer to James, hummed happily as she settled in. 'I guess the snow isn't so bad.'

He turned to look at her then, his hand moved from her thigh to the ends of her hair and he began threading his fingers through the strands. There was something about his hands in her hair that always did her in, how his fingertips always brushed against the sides of her neck, just lightly enough that she could barely feel them, how the cool metal of his wedding band felt when it brushed against her skin. He trailed his fingers purposely across her neck now, wound them in her hair and pulled her just a bit closer. It wasn't much in way of closing the distance between them, but it was enough to make it clear to her where his thoughts were headed.

It amazed her that even after all these years, after a day where he drove her so _completely_ around the twist, that she could sit here and want him like she did now. She really loved him, fucking idiot that he was, with his stupid weather maps and his complete inability to go shopping without buying something stupid, and she shouldn't have been surprised (they _were_ married after all), but sometimes it hit her in the gut just how much she loved him, just how much space he took up in her heart that she felt overwhelmed by it.

'To think,' James said, his eyes shining with amusement as turned slightly, rested his forehead against hers, 'you yelled at me about the snow.'

'Oh, shut up,' she said, rolling her eyes, as she leaned forward the rest of the way and kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://elanev91.tumblr.com/)?


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